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When I was a kid, I loved the musical ‘Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat’.ÌýÌýI remember going to see it with my family and we had a tape of the soundtrack to play in the car.ÌýIt has memorable tunes and lyrics, fabulous costumes, and sticks closely to the original story from Genesis. The musical stops at the point when the brothers finally reconcile and Jacob, Joseph’s father, has joined him in Egypt.ÌýÌýThe family are together, so Joseph sings happily about his coloured coat to finish the show.

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But the story doesn’t end there.ÌýÌýThis weekend, every synagogue will read the last instalment in this amazing story.ÌýÌýJacob is elderly and wants to bless Joseph’s two sons before he dies.ÌýÌýBut when Jacob touches his grandson’s heads to bless them, he tries to bless the younger – Ephraim – before the elder – Menashe, not how it was done in the ancient world.ÌýÌýJoseph puts this down to Jacob’s blindness and tries to correct him, but Jacob says that he knows what he’s doing. This episode is the subject of a magnificent painting by Rembrandt from 1656, now on display in a German museum.ÌýÌýJoseph tries to guide his elderly father’s hands, as he places them on the heads of the two boys.ÌýÌýLike many of Rembrandt’s works, the faces of the figures possess a magnetic radiance.

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I think this scene teaches a compelling idea about how we sometimes relate to our children.ÌýÌýJoseph assumes that his sons will follow their birth-order, with the elder – Menashe – becoming the leader.ÌýÌýYet Jacob sees something else in each of his grandsons, the potential to succeed in ways that differ from the destiny of their birth order.ÌýÌýJoseph tries, but fails, to make his father see the children his way. Today we might call this empowerment, the ability to encourage and enable each child to be themselves, to help them find and use their talents to become the best version of themselves.ÌýÌýIt can be so tempting for us to project our own aspirations on to our children that we may forget that they aren’t us. A Jewish teacher, Zusha, once said: ‘when I get to heaven, they won’t ask me why I wasn’t like Moses, but why I wasn’t like Zusha’! Being the best version of ourselves - that’s a true blessing.